If all goes according to plan, Chandrakar said the purchase of 138 acres of private land between Jareikela and Diesel Colony should be finished over the next three to six months.
The National Highway Division (NHD) authorities are facing a new challenge from locals who are demanding alignment diversion in Bisra block of Sundargarh district, despite the fact that the land acquisition process for the development of the recently announced National Highway (NH) 320 D is underway and the tender for the Rs 159 crore project recently floated.
According to sources, on Monday, a group of villagers protested the highway that runs through the Bisra block headquarters’ market area and delivered a letter to Daulat Chandrakar, the Panposh Sub-Collector in Rourkela, requesting that the project skip their neighbourhood because it would result in the destruction of homes and businesses as well as accidents.
The NHD authorities are sceptical due to an increase in development project opposition in the Sundargarh district, which is predominately tribal, and they are also concerned about running into land issues when paying compensation for private land.
Executive Engineer (EE) Santosh Patra of the National Highway Division (NHD) announced that the land acquisition procedure for a 24 km stretch from Jareikela to Diesel Colony in Bondamunda has started and that a tender for roughly Rs 159 crore was recently published for the project. However, he noted, work wouldn’t begin until he had actual control of the needed land.
On September 19, 2018, the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways published a gazette notification designating the NH 320 D as a route beginning at the NH-20/NH-20 junction in Chakradharpur in Jharkhand and ending at the NH 143/NH 320 junction in Rourkela in Odisha. The MoRTH approved Rs 209.92 crore in March 2022 for the conversion of a 36 km section of the NH 320 D in Sundargarh into a two-lane highway with a paved shoulder.
According to information, of the 36 km length between Jareikela and Diesel Colony that was once a Major District Road, 12 km are made up of pieces of the Hanuman Vatika bypass and the Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP) (RMC).
The dubious 12 km stretch has no immediate development plans because it is unclear whether RSP will permit two of its highways, including a portion of the ring road, to be recognised as NH 320 D and also supply extra land.
If all goes according to plan, Chandrakar said the 138 acres of private land between Jareikela and Diesel Colony should be acquired within the next three to six months. He hoped the RSP would release land for the NH 320 D route and also part with the piece of the ring road that fell on the alignment for the highway’s widening between Diesel Colony and Bisra Square.
Prasanta Patnaik